


Like Pale and Pevensey

by Ilthit



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Fluff, Hell, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Making Out, Sex Magic, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:03:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4706984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr Norrell and Mr Strange go to hell (literally) and perform a marriage (symbolically).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Pale and Pevensey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Predatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Predatrix/gifts).



Weather on the outskirts of hell was hot and dry. Though in the Pillar of Eternal Night the houses of Mr Norrell and Mr Strange never had the benefit of sunlight and therefore tended to be chilly even by the standards of old country houses, in their current situation in the arid land a mile outside the Last Oasis, they were sweltering. Mr Norrell, who was never happy in either extreme heat or cold, was miserable. He had stripped to his shirtsleeves without so much as his customary banyan or cap, had loosened his waistcoat, and even discarded his neckcloth, though he kept it in his waistcoat pocket in case they had an unlikely visitor. He spent as many hours of his waking time as he could deep within the bowels of Hurtfew Abbey, where the stones retained some of the coolness of night. 

On their second day in the steppes of Hell Mr Norrell had to concede that his studies had brought him no closer to the object of their stay in these parts, and so he emerged to look for Mr Strange. He found him seated sockless and sans waistcoat on a window-bench in the library of Ashfair House, a book open in his lap and others lying about him in stacks. In the distance beyond the window, a faint glow like the beginnings of sunrise outlined the imposing standing stones that stood in rows scattered about the landscape. That, in their darkness, was all they could see of the blaze of Hell.

"Have you made any progress?" 

Strange gave him a tired smile and shook his head. 

The Second Magician had improved visibly in the time since they had been trapped in the Darkness. The ravages of his time in Venice might never leave him and the lack of any sunlight not generated by magical means had left him pale, but he no longer had the gaunt, wild look of madness and privation about him. Their domestic intimacy had progressed to a point where Mr Norrell had no quibbles in demanding that Strange eat at regular intervals, which had had the gratifying effect of filling him out to something like his old dimensions. What was more, he had shaved. 

Mr Norrell removed a book that had been left carelessly open and upside down, marked the page with a slip of paper, and set the book aside, seating himself in the vacated space on the window-seat. "You know my opinions on this venture. It is altogether too much like a fairy-pact."

"We have discussed this, Mr Norrell. We are not inviting a person with wants and needs to our aid. The power locked into this land..."

"It is made up of a multitude of souls whose personalities have worn away and is therefore impersonal and unintelligent. I am aware. But there is no magic we know of that acts as a precedent to what we are attempting to accomplish, and therefore we must be most precise in how we word any new contract we may want to establish!"

"That, I think, is a problem for when we have managed to make our acquaintance with this force in the first place." Strange closed his book with a decisive clap. "I must have read the same paragraph half a dozen times, and I cannot tell you what it said. I believe the word 'consequently' made three appearances."

"Oh, you are not looking into Fotheringey, are you? A pointless exercise! He wrote a great deal about Hell but knows nothing at all about magical contracts, and therefore nothing at all about magic."

Strange, as usual, kept his own counsel on the usefulness of Fotheringey, but suggested they have a rest. This meant a foray into the kitchen and their biscuit-box (no cheese; it would not have endured the weather). The heat being too immense for anything hot, tea was replaced with a less satisfactory glass of port. They finished with some leftover baked egg. 

The sparse food, weather, and unaccustomed drink left Mr Norrell yawning. After the dishes had been put away he took Strange's hand and led him through an enchanted door in the hallway of Ashfair House which opened outside his own bedroom on the second floor of Hurtfew Abbey. "Only for an hour or so," said Strange, who had caught Mr Norrell's yawns. 

They retired on top of the covers. Spells for creating light were now such everyday things to them that Strange barely had to think to say the words to create a glow as of summer sunlight streaming in through a high window. Oh, the Darkness resisted! It did not want to give its prisoners the cheer or contentment of illumination, and perhaps the light was a little dimmer than intended – like that of a rainy day in the midst of a cold and dreary summer – but it could not swallow it up entirely. Mr Norrell frowned and covered his eyes with an arm. Their palms remained lightly pressed together. Strange ran a thumb over the side of Mr Norrell's hand, a small gesture of reassurance and apology. So they slept, as deeply as physical discomfort allowed. 

Norrell woke first, emerging from a dream of walking through a series of rooms. He sat up and shook Strange, who grumbled, turned, attempted to sit up, and failed. He fell back onto the bed with a groan. 

"Come now, Mr Strange," said Norrell. "'Only for an hour', you said."

Strange made an unhappy sound and pulled Norrell down upon himself. 

"Mr Strange, it is far too hot for embracing," said Norrell after a while, to which Strange responded by pressing his lips on his, which always had the effect of making Norrell forget whatever argument or complaint he had been about to make. 

As a stratagem, it was to be used sparingly. As a way to pass time, it was perhaps improper, but it answered a hollow longing in Strange's chest, and for Mr Norrell, though he could not tell you why, it brought happiness and terror in equal measure. 

The magical light brightened just a fraction, growing warmer, as if wan clouds had passed away from the sun. Mr Norrell propped himself up on one elbow to keep kissing Strange without needing to lie upon his sweat-soaked shirt. Instead of the crackling of wood and contracting of air that occurred when strong magic was employed, the oak-wood bed sighed and the walls hummed, a sound on the edge of hearing. Mr Norrell felt the tendrils of Strange's magic tangle with his own, and sighed happily along with the oak.

“Hmm,” said Strange, all at once alert. “There's a thought.” He bounced off the bed, striding out the door. “Come along, Mr Norrell! What is Ronzotti's shelf-reference?”

“4 by 376, but I lent it to you last month,” said Mr Norrell. “Do slow down, Mr Strange.” 

Strange stopped in the hallway and contemplated the variety of books strewn around his two houses and the likelihood of finding a specific one at a short notice. “Perhaps we don't need it. There was a chapter, in the latter half, about magical signal-posts of a kind, to attract and collect precisely the kind of impersonal... energy, whatever this many-mouthed thing we are sitting on is. If it is all in one place, perhaps we can scoop it up, like tea-leaves from the bottom of a cup, and put it in a bottle.”

“Like a mad-woman's mouse? Oh, Mr Strange. I know the passage you refer to, but you know my feelings about magical talismans. And this would store the magic of Hell! It a thoughtless thing to suggest.”

“Not if we make our sign-post one that couldn't possibly attract any force of malice or sorrow.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

Strange scooped Mr Norrell up and kissed him. The dust around their feet danced for a moment as if scattered about by a twist of wind. 

“Ah,” said Mr Norrell.

Since the magicians had taken to dining at Ashfair, what had once been Hurtfew Abbey's dining-room had been turned into something of a laboratory. No books had their permanent residence here, but there were maps, mirrors with black glass, various dried plants and bones that had a well-established symbolical significance, some pips and a bottle of water from the once-upon-a-time grounds of Hurtfew Abbey, a great store of raven feathers, and many more items stacked on the shelves and the long table, sometimes neatly, sometimes in chaotic piles. Mr Norrell straightened a stack of boxes of England's dirt. “We shall need an item to function as a beacon and receptacle,” he said, “perhaps a net of some sort. This land should understand Latin, I believe – unless you wish to attempt a Hell dialect?”

“English should do as well as any other language at present,” said Strange and examined a trichinobezoar in the magical light, before discarding it for a bead of jet. “ _We_ are the spell. Like Pale and Pevensey.” 

“Not _quite_ like Pale and Pevensey, one hopes,” said Mr Norrell, pushing chairs away from the battered round carpet (with no kinds of patterns at all save a thick unbroken circle that ran very near the edge and might at one point have been yellow) which they had been in the habit of using for any work requiring a boundary.

“Exactly like Pale and Pevensey. Catherine of Winchester wrote about this kind of magic as well, and you could hardly ask for a higher authority. The Sacred Marriage, a meeting of earth and sky, where the magicians are both the envoy and the path, and the handsel is... well!”

“You are falling into your customary error of over-invention, Mr Strange,” said Norrell. “We do not wish to effect an actual summoning.”

Strange waved a hand impatiently. 

“Let us look at what we do know...”

In little more than half an hour enough spells of protection and capture had been constructed to satisfy Mr Norrell. The magicians stood facing each other in the middle of their conjuring carpet, having marked the boundary three times with a piece of string. Mr Norrell lifted his sweaty face up to Strange, who grinned down at him. The bubble of spells around them made the air smell faintly metallic. 

“I believe you should take the lead, Mr Strange. You are better acquainted with the physical aspect, and you are yet to lead me astray in our, ah, recreational...” Mr Norrell searched for a word, but had no opportunity to actually come up with one before Strange kissed him a third time within the hour, lifting his chin up. He lay his lips on his, once, then twice. Mr Norrell closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. 

Catherine of Winchester had insisted on the connection between emotion and intention in increasing magical aptitude. If emotion was an amplifier, Mr Norrell thought they must be going in the right direction. He often found himself wishing Strange was freer with his kisses, provided Mr Norrell was not reading or about to go to sleep at the time, which in the past had been shown to be Mr Strange's favourite time to become affectionate. When he did, the effect was most remarkable. Mr Norrell's skin would prickle and his breath pick up, as if in fear, but no fear accompanied it. Where there should have been panic and discomfort, there was bold delight. Even in Sutton-Grove there was mention of what Ormskirk had called _deeds of courage_ to boost one's magic. To kiss Mr Strange like this was certainly an act of courage, a nonsensical thing Norrell should have been mortified to attempt had he not Strange's full and enthusiastic cooperation. At that moment Strange gently closed his lips around Norrell's lower one and slowly pulled, and Mr Norrell lost his train of thought and felt his knees go weak. What a curious... curious thing indeed. He grabbed hold of Strange's arm for support.

There was a fresh and welcome coolness, like of a garden after rain, and the smell of wet grass. Strange broke off and looked around. “Ah, we are getting somewhere."

Mr Norrell wrenched his eyes away from Strange's lips. The string they had wound around their carpet had grown long green tendrils, as if vine clinging to an invisible structure, which now formed a dome around them. The oppressive heat of hell felt, for the moment, a little abated. “Please do try to concentrate, Mr Strange,” he said, but as Strange merely giggled at him, Mr Norrell was forced to take matters into his own hands and pull him down himself, latching stubbornly onto that lovely mouth. 

Strange clutched the back of Mr Norrell's head and opened his mouth, and to the smell of fresh grass was added a touch of the sharp scent of wildflowers. They wound around each other and the magic wound around them, dizzy and bristling. The walls groaned, now, though not a word of a spell had been spoken yet. _We are the spell_ , Mr Norrell reminded himself, the pestle and mortar of transformation. He broke the kiss to gasp for air. “Mr Strange,” he implored, though he not entirely sure what he wanted from him. Strange chose to lunge at his open neck.

Mr Norrell clung to Strange's back, the thin cotton twisting under his fingers. Strange's were in Mr Norrell's hair as he mouthed at his neck, and Mr Norrell let his head fall back, the sensation of teeth so close to his throat sending another jolt of that excitement that should be panic through him. There was a sensation as of white light, and he thought of Ormskirk's spell for protection against enchantments. He had been young then, and the moon had filled his vision and the nail had pierced his hand and he had hid his heart underneath the roots of the Raven King's apple trees, but nothing had changed... 

Strange broke them apart, suddenly pushing Mr Norrell away by his shoulders. “M-Mr Norrell, the spell. Hold it in your mind, if you please. It is not always easy when one is... in an altered state. The receptacle is this bead of jet, remember? Once alive, like moss-oak, heavy with promise, now a comfort for those grieving...”

“Of course,” said Mr Norrell impatiently. “I hope you have more faith in my skill than that!” Though in truth the jet bead had completely slipped his mind. 

Strange, who had been sinking closer to him since he started speaking, nodded. They found themselves falling into a kneeling position on the floor. The leaves of their now thick canopy fluttered, but there was a touch of darkness about them and a frisson of thunder. Strange frowned, his face twisting in something like anguish. 

“Good heavens, what is the matter?” cried Mr Norrell, alarmed. The magic swirled around them still, waiting to be captured and focused. “You must not allow dark thoughts to disarrange your composure now, Mr Strange. We are nearly there. If you cannot banish them, we must stop and begin anew.”

“Mr Norrell,” said Strange and leaned forward until their foreheads were together, “it is an imposition at such a time, I realize, but I would very much appreciate a little praise right now.”

“Praise?” asked Norrell, very nearly scoffing. 

“Please.”

“Er... very well.” He really would have preferred to get back to kissing. “You are a great magician, Mr Strange.”

“Jonathan,” said Strange.

“Really? Yes, of course, Jonathan. You are the most wonderful magician I have ever met. In a very short span of years you outgrew me without even the benefit of my books. I'm sorry, Mr... Jonathan, I'm afraid I don't know what you want me to say.”

“Isn't it obvious?” said Strange, inches away from his face. “Only do not lie. I hope... but sometimes, Mr Norrell, you can be obscure where you ought to be clear, at least to me. I suppose it is childish of me to request this now, but... please?”

Mr Norrell understood, or at least he thought he did. The magic stirred. He desperately wished he had guessed correctly. “I love you!” he blurted out. “Of course I do. Of course I do, Jonathan Strange.” 

Strange swooped down and kissed him, open-mouthed and hungry. Mr Norrell took his face between his hands and kissed him back. The magic whipped the air around them and built into a pillar of its own – a pillar of light within the very centre of the darkness. “The bead,” gasped Mr Norrell, and Strange handed it to him, closing his own hands around Norrell's. 

The sky reached down and kissed the ground.

For a moment Mr Norrell felt as if every drop of blood in his body had turned into intoxicating wine. Then the feeling spent itself in a single gentle roll and disappeared between their hands into the bead of jet. Strange let out a shuddering breath and collapsed. The leafy canopy withered and shrunk, retreating back into the string it had grown out of. The Night closed in upon them both. 

For a while they were too exhausted to do anything but lie on their backs on the carpet, the memory of magic tingling in their limbs. “Well done, Mr Norrell,” said Jonathan Strange after a while. 

Mr Norrell sneezed – the floor had not been swept in quite a while – and sat up groggily. “Likewise, Mr Strange.” He felt quite out of magic, and so pulled himself up by the edge of a writing-desk and felt around for a candle. He was sure he'd left some in the left hand drawer. “That... that was remarkable. I believe we may have created a very creditable talisman. It seems almost a shame to use it as a mere trap. I do believe a jet bead was the right choice. The material may be fragile but it has several symbolic associations that strengthen it magically. We must merely make sure no physical harm comes to it.”

“I dare say.” Strange pushed himself up off the floor as Norrell fit new candles into a cobwebbed chandelier and lit them. He stumbled once and caught himself on the edge of the table. 

“Catherine of Winchester!” Norrell murmured, taking up a sheet of paper and beginning to jot down notes. “For a first attempt, I'd say we did very well, despite the irregularity. Really, Mr Strange! If it was so important for you to know whether or not I loved you, you might have asked me before we began.”

“You may have to tell me again,” said Strange, who took two unsteady steps to the desk and embraced Mr Norrell from behind, laying first a kiss and then his chin on the top of his head. 

Mr Norrell sighed. “Certainly, Mr Strange, but surely you see that a record of what we have done must take precedence.”

“I do not see that at all, Mr Norrell.”

Mr Norrell determined it would be easier to gain forgiveness than permission and wrote down two more notes, then stopped and blew out his breath in a puff of laughter. “And to imagine all those historians thought performing the Sacred Marriage required _sexual congress_! Why are you laughing?”

“No reason,” said Strange, and patted him affectionately. 

-

As planned, they buried the bead in the dirt just outside Hurtfew Abbey. Mr Norrell, fretting about the looseness of the ground and the gusts of wind that constantly battered the steppes, added so many minor protective spells about the site that Strange was obliged to beg he stop before he rendered its purpose moot. “How do you word your dinner invitations, I wonder? 'Your company is kindly requested at date so and so, when we shall be delighted to behead you at the gates?'”

“It would be a terrible thing to lose,” mumbled Mr Norrell, and even Mr Strange had to admit to some reluctance as he rolled the bead from his hand into the ground. The magic completed, the magicians finally remembered their dinner. 

-

“Well, it is a result,” said Strange some nine hours later, after two meals and one long sleep. They stood under the dome that arched over Hurtfew's main entrance, each holding a torch to light the clear, eternal night before them. 

“Why, this is nonsense,” said Mr Norrell. “This is no use to us at all.”

Before Hurtfew Abbey was an open courtyard bordered by their three other houses, but instead of the tangled, sparse dry grass and the copious sandbanks that had been the only features of the area last night, there was a wild-growing garden of twisting trees covered in vines. Hothouse flowers clung to their bark, and the ground was hidden underneath a thick growth of ferns.

“I am taking my talisman back,” said Mr Norrell and began to kick at the vegetation around the area where they had buried the bead. Strange closed his eyes, drew in a breath, and when he opened his eyes again they fell on the bead caught in the fork of a branch nearby. He picked it up. 

“It's not there!” cried Mr Norrell. “What shall we do now, Mr Strange?”

Strange took his hand, opened it, and dropped the bead in it. He then hooked his arm around Mr Norrell's. “It's a lovely morning,” he said despite the pitch-black, scorching darkness that surrounded them. “I say we go for a stroll in the garden.”


End file.
